Reading room of Barr Smith library created as a beautiful scholarly space by Walter Bagot at Adelaide University
The University of Adelaide's Barr Smith library reading room with its panelled ceiling and frieze with Latin inscriptions acknowledging the support of Robert Barr Smith and his con Tom Elder Barr Smith.
Image courtesy University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide’s Barr Smith Library reading room was acclaimed as one of the most beautiful scholarly spaces in Australia.
The Barr Smith Library was designed by Walter Hervey Bagot of Adelaide architects Woods, Bagot & Laybourne Smith and opened in March 1932, with additions to the main building from the 1950s onwards. The classically-derived Barr Smith library building was in stark contrast to Bagot's other Adelaude University building, the Bonython Hall, in the mediaeval gothic style. The library, of red-brick, stone dressings and freestone portico, was reminiscent of Georgian England, It also was likened to buildings at Harvard University.
The Barr Smith Library was a memorial to Robert Barr Smith who, from 1892, bequeathed large sums of money to but books for the university library. After his death in 1915, the family supported the library and his son Thomas Elder Barr Smith and offered £20,000, later increased to £34,000, for a new library to relieve the congested one in the Mitchell Building.
The new library’s reading room was designed for restful effect. The oak furniture and parquetry were the deepest notes of a scheme which lightened gradually towards the ceiling. This was finished in tones of antique ivory and gold with a contrasting tint of soft green, itself an echo of the colour of the terrazzo frieze. The detail of the acanthus and other plastic ornament enriching the coffered ceiling panels of the ceiling was heightened by a dark overglaze applied over a light ground, with the highlights wiped off.
The reading room’s frieze inscriptions commemorated the two Barr Smith donations:
ROBERT BARR SMITH DONIS PER SE ET HEREDES INDE AB A.D. MDCCCXCII IMPERTITIS BIBLIOTHECAM PRIOREM LIBRIS EXPLEVERAT
and
TOM ELDER BARR SMITH HANC BIBLIOTHECAM AD PATRIS NOMEN ORNADUM, SVMPTV SVO AEDIFICANDAM CVRAVIT A.D. MCMXXX.
The library housed rare books and special collections, and university archives and recordkeeping. It had large collections across many subjects including Australian history, politics and literature, English literature, world wars, socialism and fascism, women and gender studies, utopian literature, and food studies. Specialist areas included the music collection, East Asian collection, Yaitya Ngutupira and recreational reading.
Gifts from the Barr Smith family and other benefactors greatly assisted the library;s growth from its humble beginnings, providing a firm foundation for the library’s 21st Century annual budget of more than $3,000,000, and providing more than 2.3 million print and 260,000 electronic items.